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We attended the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt today. Spring is taking off with the forsythia, quince, pear trees, and magnolias in bloom. It felt like Easter should be arriving soon. In Australia, I had to constantly tell myself that the holidays were still in the same month. Because the seasons are opposite, the holidays never felt like they were at the correct time. When you live 39 years in the Northern hemisphere having Easter in Autumn, the 4th of July in winter, and Christmas in summer is difficult to get used to. Easter Egg hunts were a major part of Dale’s childhood memories. His Mama was a children’s pastor for years and they would hard boil and dye countless eggs for the church’s Easter Egg hunt. Dale will have to comment with the number of eggs they dyed each year. He told me the number once, but all I can remember thinking is…”how can you possibly boil that many eggs?” I love hard boiled eggs, but am hopeless at cooking them. I know it is supposed to be a simple cooking task, but for some reason I only occasionally do it correctly. The Manrys would have a massive egg hunt at the church and eat hard boiled eggs for a week. I, however, grew up with the tradition of hunting for my Easter Basket. My Mom would hide our baskets throughout the house and we would wake up Easter morning and search for them. We would attend sunrise service and then the church would host a pancake breakfast that the men would cook. When we returned home, we would continue searching for our baskets. One year, my Mom hid mine in an old cigar box that was piled up with a bunch of junk stacked next to the steps. That one took a long time to find. I know I am getting old because instead of always wanting to celebrate holidays differently, I am now quite nostalgic for traditions of my past. I want to wave palm branches on Palm Sunday, I want to attend Good Friday Service and contemplate Christ’s death on the cross, I want to wake up for Easter Sunrise Service and stand outside singing the praises of the resurrection. I want to hear the same passages read on those days year after year because they are the most significant reminders of why we follow Christ. I admit that Easter Egg and basket hunts are not as important as the other celebrations of Easter, but I find them fun none the less. In a combination of traditions, our kids usually attend both an Egg hunt and an Easter morning basket hunt. The egg hunt for years was provided courtesy of Army mandatory fun. Some units still hold Egg hunts and Christmas parties. In Australia, we attended the egg hunt on the grounds of the American Embassy. The challenge during that hunt was avoiding the magpies that would swoop down, crack the plastic egg, steal the lolly and fly away. Being Australian magpies, they thought of it as a lolly not a candy. Todays Easter Egg Hunt had separate areas for different age children, a large decorated white chair with an Easter Bunny sitting in it for pictures, and a table of cupcakes that someone cleverly made look like baskets using a piece of red licorice. I considered it fairly self explanatory, but it did not stop a kindly woman from attempting to inform the crowd about what to do. She of course could not be heard over the wind and the children, but she was not deterred. Zeke ran about jumping over various eggs and picking up others at random. Josiah was trying to determine why Zeke was jumping over the eggs. I told him that it was impossible to figure out the thought process of a 3 year old in the midst of an egg hunt.